Ferrari was not competitive in eighth and thirteenth place for Vettel and Räikkönen respectively, with both cars suffering from problems with their energy recovery unit.

Fernando Alonso managed eleventh place, but had to spend considerable time in the garage while his team worked on his car. Marcus Ericsson also had limited track time as a problem with his exhaust pipe forced him to miss the early part of the session.

With loose kerbs detected during the GP2 qualifying session, drivers were instructed to stay clear of the kerbs at turn 6.

In the third session on Saturday morning, Hamilton topped the timesheets once again, setting a time of 1: Hülkenberg was third for Force India ahead of Ricciardo and Vettel.

The session saw several incidents: The first period of qualifying Q1 ran for eighteen minutes and set positions seventeen to twenty-two on the grid.

Jenson Button qualified nineteenth, after running wide at turn 15 on his first flying lap and aborting his second after encountering traffic.

Marcus Ericsson finished twentieth overall, ahead of the Renaults of Kevin Magnussen and Jolyon Palmer , who struggled with a lack of power on the circuit's long straights.

The second qualifying period was fifteen minutes in length, and was used to set positions eleven through to sixteen.

Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton locked his brakes on the approach to turn 7, damaging his race tyres. Hamilton narrowly avoided elimination, setting a time good enough to proceed on his last attempt.

Romain Grosjean was eliminated in eleventh, having overcome issues with his brake balance. Nico Hülkenberg was a surprise elimination in twelfth, having run consistently at the front of the field throughout the weekend.

His elimination was attributed to a miscommunication between himself and his engineer over the amount of fuel he had on board. The third and final session was twelve minutes long.

This left eight drivers — with the exception of the crashed Hamilton and Rosberg, who elected not to go out — to fight for positions on the grid.

Daniel Ricciardo led the column of cars out and set a lap time good enough for third place; Sebastian Vettel matched his lap time to the thousandth of a second, and was classified fourth, as Ricciardo had set his lap time first.

Kimi Räikkönen finished fifth, ahead of Felipe Massa. Daniil Kvyat out-qualified teammate Sainz in seventh, the first time that he had out-qualified a teammate in Valtteri Bottas overcame the damage to his car and lack of running during free practice to finish eighth alongside Verstappen, the two having been involved in a series of on-track altercations throughout qualifying.

Hamilton finished tenth, with his time of over two minutes having been recorded when he took to the escape road on his first flying lap.

Under the regulations, a driver who qualifies in the top ten must start the race on the set of tyres they used to record their best time in the second part of qualifying.

However, Hamilton's front left tyre, which belonged to the set of tyres that he subsequently used to set his fastest time during his next flying lap, was deemed to be too damaged following his lock-up going into turn seven, necessitating its change on safety grounds.

At the start of the race, Rosberg retained his lead ahead of Ricciardo, followed by Vettel and Räikkönen. Hamilton remained tenth until he overtook Kvyat for ninth place on lap four.

One lap later, both Bottas and Hamilton seized an opportunity to overtake Max Verstappen , as he ran wide into turn two. As a reaction, Red Bull decided to change tyres on Verstappen's car on the following lap.

Another lap later, Ricciardo followed suit. On lap ten, Hamilton overtook Bottas for fourth place, but was more than twenty seconds behind teammate Rosberg.

He went into the pit lane for a tyre change on lap Second placed Sebastian Vettel came into the pit lane at the end of lap 21 and dropped to third behind Ricciardo.

Race leader Rosberg made his stop one lap later, retaining the lead. Aided by pit stops in front of him and a timely overtake on Carlos Sainz Jr.

Two laps later, Räikkönen let teammate Vettel pass him for second place, albeit 18 seconds down on race leader Rosberg.

Starting by lap 32, Hamilton suffered from problems with his car, being stuck in a wrong engine mode.

Another lap later, the race ended for Sainz due to a suspension problem. On lap 42, Pascal Wehrlein retired as well with brake failure.

By lap 44, Hamilton had sorted out his issues and set the fastest lap of the race while in fifth place. As Rosberg was comfortably in the lead, still 18 seconds ahead of Vettel, Verstappen took ninth place from Massa going into turn one on lap Red Bull teammate Ricciardo also gained a place, at Hülkenberg's expense, at the same spot three laps later.

At the podium interview, conducted by former team owner Eddie Jordan , Rosberg hailed an "amazing weekend" for himself, saying that he was "ecstatic" about the victory, but refused to answer questions concerning the outcome of the World Championship.

Second-placed Vettel praised the track and his team's effort in preparing the car after difficulties in Friday's free practice. During the following press conference, Vettel expressed surprise at the fact that no safety car period had emerged over the course of the race.

Fifth-placed Hamilton, who had been stuck in a wrong engine mode for twelve laps [44] and was at first unable to resolve the issue without the help of his team, attacked the revised radio rules, stating: Several drivers, such as Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, joined him in his criticism.

Following his pit lane entry violation during the race, which handed him a five-second time penalty, Kimi Räikkönen was furthermore given two penalty points to his licence , bringing him to five overall.

As a result of the race, Rosberg extended his lead in the Drivers' Championship to 24 points over Hamilton, with Vettel a further 21 points behind in third.

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